[Excerpt] Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda expressed his willingness to allow Japan
to exercise the right of collective self-defense, an issue that could
further split the ruling party but would likely find support from the
main opposition party.

Majia here: I am going to repost an excerpt from an article I looked at a couple of weeks ago now as it has relevance for Japan's "right to exercise collective self-defense":

[excerpted] "The Atomic Energy Basic Law was amended in the shadows of the hoopla surrounding the three-party agreement on a tax hike.The new clause allows the possibility of nuclear armament open to interpretation.
It was an underhanded deal, in which an amendment to the Atomic Basic
Law was merely incorporated into the appendix of a law on the
establishment of a nuclear regulatory panel....

....Only at a meeting of an upper house environmental committee on June
20, when a DPJ lawmaker questioned whether nuclear arms development was
the purpose of passing the bill, did it become public that a clause in
the Basic Law had been revised.....

....A deputy press secretary of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade has also said that the ministry is "watching the
situation closely."....

...."It probably comes down to the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant,"
said a bureaucrat with whom I've been acquainted for years. "If the
country moves toward the abandonment of nuclear power, that facility
will lose meaning. If it is legally granted legitimacy as a facility for
the military use of nuclear materials, then it can continue to exist. I
believe that there were LDP lawmakers who thought of that, and
bureaucrats who supported them...

...The Atomic Energy Basic Law went into effect in 1955, the same year
that the LDP was founded. Fifty-seven years have since passed, and we
are moving further and further away from democratic, independent and
public disclosure principles. (By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer)

Here is an excerpt from some of my research concerning this subject:

One important question that persists
about Japan’s nuclear industry is its links to a secret weapons program. For
decades Japan has been stockpiling more plutonium than it could use in a
breeder reactor program or for mixed oxide fuel containing plutonium. In America’s Nuclear, Wayne LeBaron notes
that in 1993 Japan was expected to receive 30 freighter size shipments of
plutonium from Europe over 20 years for reprocessing. Japan also purchased
plutonium from Russia (225). In the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
Junzaburo Takahi, a scientist with Japan’s Citizens’ Nuclear Information
Center, and Baku Nishio, a staff member of that organization, describe Japan’s
“fake plutonium shortage”:[i]

The Japan Atomic Energy Commission
decided last December 12 to use ships to

bring plutonium extracted in France
and Britain back to Japan. A week later, the

Japanese government assigned the
Maritime Safety Agency to escort the plutonium and allocated an initial 8.3
billion yen ($54 million U.S.) from the 1989 supplementary budget to construct
an escort vessel. The shipments are scheduled to begin in 1992, after
construction of the 6,500-ton armed escort vessel is completed at a total cost
of 20 billion yen ($130 million)….

The rationale for purchasing this plutonium was never
disclosed, beyond Japan’s use of it in its civilian energy program.

As of 2010,
Japan had more than 46 tons of separated plutonium stored domestically and in
Europe.[ii]
As mentioned previously Joseph Trento claims the inventory actually ranges
upward to 70 tons of plutonium. Japan’s Mox recycling program has been limited.[iii]Japan’s newly completed Rokkasho reprocessing
plant enables even greater stockpiling of plutonium. Japan seems to have more
plutonium stored than needed for its limited Mox program given the decision to
discontinue the breeder reactor program.

Japan’s decision to resume plutonium
processing in early 2012 when all nuclear reactors in the country had been
idled was puzzling. This decision was made during a secret meeting stacked with
nuclear industry officials and scientists close to that industry.[iv]
The secrecy of this meeting produced public outrage in Japan, leading even to
editorials in The Mainichi decrying the secrecy and demanding an investigation.[v]

Piers Williamson published an essay
in the Asia Pacific Journal summarizing
speeches delivered May 31, 2012 by Professors Frank von Hippel (Princeton
University) and Gordon MacKerron (University of Sussex) on the issues
associated with Japan’s reprocessing and stockpiling nuclear fuel.[vi]
Williamson notes that Japan’s stockpile of plutonium would enable it to make
five thousand nuclear warheads. Although Japan (purportedly) does not currently
have a nuclear weapons program, it could easily produce one given the nation’s
technological sophistication and its vast stockpile of plutonium. Von Hippel observed
that Japan’s persistence in reprocessing is counter to international trends and
its arguments for the need for reprocessing “appear flimsy.” Japan’s insistence
on enriching uranium raises questions: “No one takes Japan’s plans to quickly
use its ‘stockpile’, or rather ‘surplus’, as credible. As Prof. von Hippel has
commented elsewhere, ‘There is a real credibility problem here.’7

Joseph Trento argues that the United
States circumvented its own and international laws in order to assist Japan’s
efforts to stockpile plutonium. Trento contends that Japan has actually
developed nuclear weapons under the cover of its nuclear utility companies.
Although Trento’s thesis cannot be easily proven without doubt he does provide
documentation of U.S. military concerns about Japan developing a secret nuclear
weapons program. Furthermore, it is interesting that in 2010 Japan’s Prime
Minister Naoto Kan stated that nuclear deterrence is necessary for Japan,
rejecting Hiroshima mayor, Akiba’s plea that Japan cede U.S. nuclear
protection.[vii]
Kan reiterated Japan’s adherence to the three non-nuclear principles against
production, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons in Japan, but would
not support or sign legislation that would make the principles law. On June 23,
2012, The Mainichi, a prominent
Japanese newspaper, argued in an editorial that a national security clause
embedded into Japan’s Atomic Energy Basic Law passed on June 20, 2012 must be
deleted:

The amendment has fueled speculations
about its true aim. Some wonder whether the interpretation of the clause could
be stretched to open the way for nuclear weapons development. Others question
whether the clause is aimed at underscoring the effectiveness of the
development and use of atomic power for nuclear power plants and other
purposes....[viii]

The clause was added by Japan’s largest opposition party, the
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Mainichi reports
“Some LDP legislators insist that Japan should maintain its high-level nuclear
technology and demonstrate to the world its capability to develop nuclear
weapons as a potential deterrent, linking atomic energy to national security.” It
would appear that Japan’s nuclear energy program is at least in principle
tightly coupled with its nuclear weapons designs. The lack of transparency
about the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the unwillingness to seek
international aid may be a function of this tight coupling.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).